You usually cannot control them directly, but they are nevertheless the key to beating the game, as you either need their skills to fix Broken Bridges of all kinds or can call on them for Combination Attacks to bring down powerful bosses. When you have to defend them, the entire game can turn into a continuous Escort Mission; when given Gameplay Ally Immortality, on the other hand, they often seem to be escorting you.

RPGs often (but not always) allow you to recruit an entire Player Party of AI companions and to control them directly when needed; in other genres, you can usually (but not always) only have up to one at any time. In games with Co-Op Multiplayer, the second player may be allowed to take over the AI companion's controls--or the AI companion may be just a stand-in dummy for another player.

Elizabeth in BioShock Infinite can open tears in the reality, keeps you (as Booker) supplied with ammo, health, and salts, and provides emergency resuscitation if you die. Oh, and she is the bona fideDeuteragonist of the game.

Alyx Vance starts off as an occasional ally in Half-Life 2 but grows more and more into the role of consistent companion in Episode 1 and particularly 2.

Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood plays with this trope by allowing you to choose whether to play as Thomas or Ray before each level, while the other brother is controlled by the AI. Both are equally important to the plot.

Tachyon: The Fringe allows you to hire a wingman who will follow you when you go out on missions. They each have their own dialogues, personalities, and stats and can suffer Character Death (apart from the robots, who are replaceable).

Role-Playing Game

Diablo II introduced the henchmen system, which allows you to hire a companion in all but one towns, though only one can follow you at any time. The companion can Level Up and be equipped with better gear, but does not replace the Player Party, which consists of other players' characters online.

Star Wars: The Old Republic has five unique companions in each class-specific storyline. Although they are discovered and recruited akin to a Player Party in single-player games, you can only bring one along at any time.

Similarly, in Fallout 3 and Fallout: New Vegas, you can recruit several AI companions but can only bring one with you, while the rest wait for you at the hub locations. In New Vegas, you can additionally have a pet (a robotic dog or an eyebot).

The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind has NPC followers on multiple quests. You can tell them to wait for you, but arming and armoring them beyond any equipment they start with is only possible in the PC version and then only by console commands. The exception is a mercenary you can hire in the Tribunal expansion, who is available at any time and has accessible inventory.

In The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, the player has the option of inviting certain NPCs to travel with them after befriending them. They can carry the player's gear and will travel with them, following their lead (if the player sneaks, they'll sneak as well), and they can be given commands such as to wait or to pick something up. The NPC's personality will determine how they react to some things--for example, if the NPC has a high morality level, if the player tells them to attack someone they'll refuse, or if they see the player commit murder they'll turn on them. The player can only have one follower at a time, though some quests will have another person travel with them temporarily without all the regular follower options. In addition to a human follower, they can also have a creature follower at the same time: they can get a dog or buy an armored troll.

You are saying that you think this draft is ready to be published. That means the description is not ambiguous,
it doesn't duplicate an existing trope, there are at least three examples, and the title makes sense.

Is that what you meant to do?

You are saying this draft has a ready-to-publish hat it does not deserve and you are taking it back.

TV Tropes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available from thestaff@tvtropes.org. Privacy Policy